No. 2

Continuation of the diary on boundaries with the Americans

[Paris, 19–30 August 1782]1

On Monday the 19th of August when I was leaving the house of M. de Vergennes, Franklin and Jay were getting out of their coach. We greeted each other, and I asked Jay whether he had amused himself with the atlas of the colonies I had given him, and whether he had found it useful.2 He answered that he had, that it was very good and that he did not know if there were better maps than those English ones. I added that we would talk whenever it pleased him, and he offered to arrange for it as soon as possible.3

On Wednesday the 21st I returned to Versailles, and M. de Vergennes showed me the large Mitchell map that I had given to Jay,4 with the demarcation of boundaries I proposed, that I had given him on Monday.

On seeing this, I indicated to M. de Vergennes that I was pleased that Jay had taken His Excellency into his confidence,5 and I told him we would speak some other day because today it appeared to me that he was busy.

On Friday the 23d I returned to Versailles to acquaint myself with M. de Vergennes’ ideas, and to inform him about what might be acceptable. He took the map and I showed His Excellency Jay’s initial proposal to draw the boundaries along the entire course of the Mississippi River, which he [Vergennes] of course considered out of order; I summarized various arguments that I had presented to Jay, that he considered appropriate; and I explained to him that I had drawn the red line in that manner, so as to identify known and permanent points as markers of the boundaries, while, at the same time, to suggest to Jay, if he modified his initial claim, that he might mark another line of a different color, to serve as a basis for further discussion.

M. de Vergennes informed me that Jay had pointed out to him that the colonies already had some advanced outposts in their back-country, far beyond the red line. I replied that Jay could indicate this on the Map, that I was ready to acknowledge as many posts as they might have established, but that, until he pointed these out, we had to be governed by the boundaries on the maps; and that, for the express purpose of giving Jay the opportunity to produce claims as to what might belong to him, I had started drawing that line; because given his lack of vocabulary and his difficulties in understanding French and Spanish, it was not possible to carry on long discussions with him. That according to my instructions I could not agree to accept the Mississippi as the boundary line, for all the reasons that show that this is not appropriate; apart from this, I would not scruple over some leagues more or less in such a vast extent of territory; and that if His Excellency wanted to take the trouble to mediate, I would appreciate it; but he should begin by requiring Jay to explain himself clearly and concretely.

M. de Vergennes indicated to me that he was prepared to do that, and asked me if I had any objection to dealing also with his first deputy, M. de Rayneval, a person well informed on the issue in question, and the most capable of carrying on discussions with Jay, because he has had more frequent dealings with him and speaks English. I accepted the offer, and he sent for him.

M. de Rayneval came down just when the Duke de Civrac, who had to talk with the aforesaid Minister, arrived, and then Rayneval and I went to another room with the map. I began by explaining the background of my conversations with Jay, and by observing that Jay’s claims were rendered all the more strange since those English possessions are composed of two parts: the first we would call Colonies, and these would have a known population, the other regions pertaining to the Crown as conquered from other empires, for example Canada and the Floridas, whose territory outside the colonies not only has nothing to do with them since the same English Monarch who formerly and arbitrarily had allowed them to draw boundaries indefinitely from East to West, is no longer willing to agree to them but crosses over them with his own lines from North to South, from Canada to Florida, treating these two possessions as the Crown’s conquered patrimony:6 furthermore, situated in the center there are different nations not subject as yet by any one; and with all this Jay wants to extend to the Mississippi without objection.

M. de Rayneval told me that my observation was correct while Jay’s was unduly optimistic; in support of this he told me that, while Louisiana and Canada had belonged to France, she had always considered all the intermediate territory as her own, even the lakes, without bothering to establish a middle line, since Canada, and Louisiana, all belonged to the same proprietor. But there was yet more that could be advanced against Jay and this was that when Canada was lost by France, when they were considering boundaries with respect to Louisiana which France retained, the English argued that the boundaries of Canada followed the entire course of the Ohio and Mississippi since M. de Vaudreuil, the French Governor of Canada, declared this in a provisional protocol made between the commanding officers of both nations when the English conquered Canada and because of this argument, when the treaty of peace was signed, the English were left with the boundary of Canada at the Mississippi, following that same river to the sea, because it had conquered Florida from Spain, as well as the French territory of Mobile. For this reason, the Americans could not claim that their territory extended beyond the right bank of the Ohio, since not having been made owners of Canada, it belonged to England; and on the same grounds neither should they acquire the left bank, since the same British Crown could claim to extend the Floridas up to the Ohio, behind Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia.

M. de Rayneval tried to locate the fort called Toulouse,7 we found it on the Alabama River; and he told me that when France held the Mobile region, on the other side of the Mississippi, between it and Spanish Florida, she built up that fort as a point of support as well as a boundary for the English and the Spanish, and that the territory from the mouth of that river upwards had always been considered under the general name Louisiana, and as such was joined at its upper limits with Canada.

Seeing that M. de Rayneval’s ideas were so far removed from Jay’s, and how well informed he was about those places, I told him that he could return that map to Jay in order to dissuade him from pursuing his ends and to [persuade him to] moderate his pretensions; that he should begin by marking the settlements that he had supposed to have advanced; and since I had an abundant supply of these maps, he could give one with the same boundaries to the Comte de Vergennes for his personal use; that we could continue marking the maps with lines for discussion, and once the final boundaries had been set, they would be entered cleanly on other maps similar to it. Mr. Rayneval appeared satisfied, and even assured me he would prepare a relevant report,8 for which I expressed my gratitude.

M. de Vergennes came in. We informed him about our discussion. He seemed agreeable, and we ended our conversation.

On Saturday the 24th I sent the promised map.

Sunday the 25th was Ambassadors’ Day, moved up from last Tuesday on account of the celebration of the great feast of St. Louis, which everybody was obliged to attend at Versailles, according to custom. I met M. de Rayneval as he was coming out of the Minister’s office, with the map under his arm, and since I knew that it was mine, I engaged him in conversation. He replied that he would make all the appropriate annotations; and I encouraged him to do so, not only as a service to the Catholic King, but also for the kindly treatment he had accorded me.

I entered in my turn to confer with M. de Vergennes, we reviewed some of the previous topics; he asked me if I would insist on the red line; I told him that I would not, as long as we kept the Colonies far removed from the Mississippi, and established some permanent points, he received this explication very well. He told me that if Jay could not understand this argument, it would be possible to agree that the savage nations in between would remain neutral and free to trade with the Spanish and the colonies. I answered him that this was undoubtedly true, but that there would come a time when this would change because the population of the colonies was increasing, and under the pretext of containing or punishing the savages, they would try to appropriate those lands as they are much better and more temperate than their old lands on the coast; that it would be good, if the neutrality of those nations was accepted, to set some meridian or well-defined line beyond which neither of the two could pass.

His Excellency picked up Jay’s map, which he still had, we reexamined it, and he told me that in order to satisfy the Americans it was necessary to give them more territory at their rear, to accomplish this I could move the line that crossed the junction of the Great Kanawha with the Ohio, to the lower junction of the Wabash with the Ohio, since from there to the Mississippi there would still be a good distance. I proposed to His Excellency that it would be sufficient to lower it so far as to pass it between the two lakes that are in the intermediate course of those tributaries, in the space where Etang Castor [Beaver Pond] is written. He replied that he would not be opposed to this, but as the Americans’ impulse would be to trade by the interior rivers, they would resist losing the Wabash which, if it were preserved [to them] by his lower [more westerly] boundary line, would leave them whole as far as the Ohio, and [since] this [is] useful over a great extent into the Colonies’ back-country, along with the Great Kanawha, it would tend to quiet and moderate their other claims.

I remarked to M. de Vergennes that although France considered Canada to have extended northwards from the Ohio, it belonged to the English; it was necessary to remember that we were discussing the Americans’ and our boundaries regarding land that could still be said to belong to the English, and that neither one nor the other of us had exercised such control over it as to suppose we had taken possession. That for this reason, the agreement had to be, even if substantially the same, drawn in terms that, in the event that either one were to extend beyond their actual boundaries either because it was unpopulated or through war with the Indians located in between—on reaching any one of the points designated as the preventative line now being set, neither of the two parties would be able to go beyond that point, on grounds that it was unpopulated or because of uncivilized Indians. That this way if Jay does not wish to put himself in a position to renounce claims to the Mississippi, he would have to confront the objection that Spain did not have to negotiate that with the Americans, but instead with the English; and that in any case the divisional line already acknowledged, or preparatory for the future, would always be distant from the Mississippi.

M. de Vergennes said that the Americans could not oppose drawing the line from the fort of Toulouse on the Alabama River, since when the Mobile region belonged to France, that was its boundary. To this I added that, if Fort Toulouse and the Alabama River were the boundaries of the French possessions when they adjoined Spanish Florida, now that it would have returned not only to its original condition, for Spain as reposed in the rights of France but that it was necessary to leave the Alabama River as an interior line, and to draw another line that would include Pensacola and adjacent areas already reconquered by Spain.

M. de Rayneval returned. He offered to work to clarify all the details; and in the presence of M. de Vergennes himself I asked him to do what was proper, according to his understanding. With that our conversation then came to an end.

On Monday the 26th Jay came to see me between one and two o’clock in the afternoon. I asked him if he was satisfied with my maps. He answered me that, he was, as regards the atlas, very much so, but less with the large map, because it seemed to him to be inaccurate. I told him that there was a general map in the atlas, too, and that to me it made no difference which was used, but that at a glance there was none better and that frankly, for him, [it made no difference] which would be better if he did not abandon his first proposition of the Mississippi for boundaries since for this type of indication one needed no maps, but merely a pen to write it down.

He replied that on his departure from the Colonies, he had been so instructed without discretion, and that, therefore, he could not alter it.

I had indeed observed in the copy of his powers he had given to me, which I sent to the Court on the 10th of August, Number 2266,9 that there was nothing that touched on the issue of adjusting boundaries, but only commerce and friendly relations; yet I did not wish to mention this to Jay for it would have given him a pretext to confirm that he was not authorized and then to justify his insistence on the Mississippi.10

Bearing this in mind, I took the opposite position, and reminded him that instructions were one thing, powers another; that in negotiating boundaries, one would always propose those that were hoped for: but that there would be nothing to negotiate nor to discuss if it were a done deed but only to formalize it as if it had been settled, first the prius est esse, quam operari would have to be established.11 That the Congress was too intelligent to think that such an intent would be attributed to it; that it could not have failed to bear in mind that there would be conflicting claims; that for a totally new establishment, to be negotiated a thousand leagues away, with a long and uncertain navigation in between, to send an attorney without power to participate, to respond to the reasoning of the others and to arrange things in such a form that it would satisfy everyone; much less to a man like Mr. Jay, who had been its President, esteemed and respected by his nation. That we all took him for a Plenipotentiary, and if he himself says that his orders do not admit any variation, they were idle conferences, maps not persuasive arguments.12

He repeated that regarding the Mississippi he was not given any other instruction nor any discretion. I asked him immediately how he had made out in Madrid when he had been negotiating boundaries. He replied that once, when he explained his orders regarding the Mississippi, he had been plainly told that that was impossible, without being given any further explanation; and having left the matter thus, he maintained his position unchanged.

I explained that my Court’s reply had been natural and proper considering his extraordinary claim, and that seeing it was inadmissible at the outset, it was his duty to inquire what Spain would want, and then to refute its ideas and give reasons for the views of Congress; while he might have lacked sufficient powers to conclude, he would have at the least clarified the claims of both sides and would have had enough time to have informed his principals about the state of this issue; so that in view of it they would have sent him their final intentions to conclude the agreement, and now he would have been able to explain them to me and to discuss them. He answered me that as nothing more had been said to him in Madrid, he had left the matter as it then stood.13

Reproaching him that, according to what was said, we would have to remain as we were; since I had denied him not only the Mississippi, but I had drawn him a line with more fundamental right to support it, than he had had on his part to propose that of the Mississippi. He replied that by virtue of my line I was compelling him to engage in discussion by which he now had seen several grounds that neither the Congress nor he himself had imagined, and that now being informed quite differently than when he left his own country, he would be able to explain to the United States the difficulties he had encountered.14

I asked him if Dr. Franklin was equally authorized by his commission to act. He answered “No,” that only he had powers with regard to Spain.

I continued to hold to my theme that he had been thought to have the character of Plenipotentiary; I repeated to him that he ought to peruse his papers closely, that he should distinguish between instructions and the credentials of a plenipotentiary. That it was not possible in these circumstances to have to negotiate the fate of the Colonies in Europe if its Commissioners had to ask Philadelphia as if it were from Paris to Madrid, a matter of 15 days for an reply by secure road; and his of 6 months by uncertain navigation and at risk of enemies and storms.

Observing that he was surprised by the force of my argument and that he did not know how to respond, I asked him if he would trust the Minister of Versailles enough to confide about his situation to him and to hear what he might say about it. He answered that he would and I persuaded him to do so; but if after having reviewed his documents he found that he was not authorized either to discuss the boundaries, or to arrange them, he would let me know in writing;15 so that, once we formally began to negotiate, I did not find that I had to disengage because he was not able to continue with it; to this he replied that he would reflect on the situation in which he found himself.

In the course of the conversation I gave him to understand how much Spain had helped the colonies, both with secret aids, and with the declaration of war that diverted the enemy’s forces. Jay responded very coldly that it was true with regard to some financial assistance, but so far as the war was concerned, he said that in Madrid they had given him to understand that they would help the Colonies with Spanish arms, and at the very best they had deployed them to conquer Florida for Spain, and this had not helped them at all either in New York or Charleston. In reply, I stated that I did not expect a man of his intelligence to make such a strange supposition that the enemy would not think that having its possessions attacked would be a distraction, that according to the rules of warfare, any ally that is on the border was entering on its side, and thus Spain having Louisiana and being able to draw into Florida part of the English forces that might have been stationed in the other posts, did what reason dictated.

He replied that he wished we had not taken Pensacola, since they allowed its garrison to go to New York and that this constituted a considerable reinforcement for the English. I answered him that he was offending us by assuming that we had acquiesced in the removal of the English troops from Pensacola to New York. That it had been a bad-faith interpretation on the part of the English and that the most that could be said is that the capitulation might have been more specific by saying that they could not take up arms again against any one of the Belligerents, instead of the allies, or to have demanded explicitly their return to Europe, and although there might have been a certain carelessness in this matter, it was by the official who signed the articles, but not the Court.16

He left, stating in his customary few words, that now he saw things very differently than he had on his arrival; and that he hoped that his commission could be satisfactorily carried out.

On Friday the 30th I was at Versailles, and at a meeting with M. the Comte de Vergennes and M. de Rayneval, I informed them about Sir John Jay’s visit on Monday the 26th,17 and as they both expressed doubts about the observation I had made to them that Jay’s powers only embraced commerce and amity, without touching the issue of boundaries, I showed them a copy of them, which surprised them both.

They told me that according to Chevalier de la Luzerne’s correspondence, the Court of Spain had begun the discussion about boundaries in the Colonies themselves through Don Juan de Miralles; to which I replied that that this might explain why it had not been advanced in Madrid.18

Since Mr. de Vergennes had to go to a meeting at the house of the comptroller,19 M. de Rayneval and I were left to continue the discussion of boundaries.

We reexamined the map, and drew a line from the mark that indicated the beginning of Eastern Florida in the direction of Fort Toulouse, to include Western Florida and attach her to Louisiana.

From the said Fort Toulouse, to reach the Ohio, M. de Rayneval had drawn a line going upwards throughout the Toulouse River, following the Cherokee or Hogohegee River, which flows into the Ohio, but a very short distance from the Mississippi; and after I had observed that this would put the Americans too close to the course of the Mississippi, we changed the line to pass across the Cherokee through the confluence of the Pelisipi, going up to its source, then to take the Cumberland River, and follow it to the Ohio, where it moves down to its junction with the Mississippi, in this way the Americans would be positioned far from the latter, although it is true that the English will still possess all of the area between the Mississippi and the Ohio northwards, since it was impossible to deny it to them as a dependency of Canada recognized by France.

M. de Rayneval read me the report on which he was working, giving information about all those lands, as to whether England considered them her own, or as independent and neutral nations, and when I asked him for a copy of it, he offered me one.20

From the discussion that we had in the meantime, I inferred that Jay had indicated how little pleased he had been with the Court of Madrid; yet, he had also begun to realize that his claim to the Mississippi River would neither have the legal basis nor the support he had imagined.

M. de Rayneval told me about an English map of North America of the year 1753, which had been published with a printed notebook of explanations, this alone did he know without having been ever able to obtain the Map which had been highly regarded in its time, all copies had disappeared.21 I told him I believed I had a copy, and that I would send it to him. This I did the next day, for which he was greatly appreciative.